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the ship (2)

Vicarage Street

 

This, the second Ship, was an alehouse in Vicarage Street and not to be confused with the first Ship that was built by Nathaniel Cary of the Angel Inn and suppressed in 1653 as an 'unfitt place'.

The reference to this Ship is from an unspecified newspaper article, dated 1904, in Leslie Brooke's notes. This article locates the Ship in Vicarage Street near its junction with Silver Street but does not allude to its period of operation which is thought to have been 18th or 19th century.

 Little else is known.

 

 

 

Vicarage Street, which used to be the principal residential thoroughfare in Yeovil (the Vicarage gave its name to the street) had a very narrow entrance from Silver Street. Between Mr Parker's shop and the coffee tavern on the opposite corner there stood a shoemaker's shop leaving the narrowest possible opening into the street. Behind the shoemaker's shop, partly on the ground now occupied by the fire station (see Gallery), was a public house known as the "Ship". The shoemaker's shop was burnt down one Sunday evening as people were going to church, whereupon the Corporation wisely purchased the land to widen the street.

Western Chronicle, 1904

 

gallery

 

An early photograph shows the fire engine house (seen on the map above) at the junction of Silver Street and Vicarage Street as viewed from Silver Street. Silver Street continues off towards the Borough at the right of the photograph while Vicarage Street runs off to the left. The Ship was located at the left end of the fire engine house.

 

This photograph probably dates to the 1940's and looks along the eastern end of Vicarage Street to its junction with Silver Street - St John's church is in the background at the right. The long, single-storey building to the left of the car is the old fire engine house and the site of the Ship (2) would have been about where the lighter section of wall stands to the left of the black and white street sign pole, itself to the left of the car.